Large part of federal broadband grant for Colorado school district projects tied up

Denver  EAGLE-Net Alliance, the much-criticized taxpayer-funded broadband project that aims to connect every school district in the state to a high-speed fiber-optic network, has committed about $96 million of its $100.6 million federal grant.

Meanwhile, the project has reached only about 25 percent of the more than 220 K-12 school districts, libraries, community colleges and other educational institutions that are supposed to be wired into the network. New connections won’t be added for at least another couple of weeks because the federal government has suspended the project for not complying with environmental and historic preservation requirements tied to the network buildout.